Monthly tasks for flawless organisation
Being organised is at the heart of everything we do at Queen Bee. Anyone who knows us, know we LOVE a list, and that can go a really long way to making you feel calm, in control and on top of your to-do’s. But, as born organisers, there are additional things we do each and every month to make running the business that little bit easier, more productive and our minds a little less chaotic.
Tidy inbox, tidy mind
In an ideal world, we’d all file and delete emails as we work, but we’re all human and even we would be embarrassed to share the state of our inbox on occasion! However, all it takes is a good declutter each month, checking that no emails or actions have been missed, and filing important emails and deleting the rest.
*Top Tip - Just keep the latest email in a thread, no need to keep each individual email within an email conversation.
*Top Tip – Read our blog about How to Blast Your Inbox in 5 minutes
Clear desk, clear thoughts
It’s incredibly difficult to plan, get creative, or tackle a piece of work if you are surrounded by mess. Clutter can quickly build and create chaos both physically and mentally. We’d recommend clearing your desk at the end of each working day, but as a minimum, have a thorough clear-out every month.
Desks are one of the most germ-ridden places so lift everything off, dust, wipe down and use anti-bacterial wipes on phones and computers. Shred or file those loose pieces of paper hanging around, clear job bags of items you don’t need and sift through in-trays to ensure you’re not hoarding out of date information.
*Top-tip - If you’re guilty of printing out items ‘to review’ at a later stage, invest in a stacked in-tray. Label each tray as ‘to file’ ‘to review’ ‘to action’ and file accordingly. Once a month, your ‘to file’ should be empty, ‘to action’ shouldn’t have anything overdue and ‘to review’ should have been re-prioritised to either ‘to file’ or ‘to action’. Having a process in place prevents papers from stacking up and ensures important documents aren’t missed.
The same principle applies to your desktop. Once a month, delete or move any rogue files you quickly saved there. Make sure any temporary files or folders you have created are properly organised on the system so everyone has access and retrieval is more logical in future months.
Be safe, back up
We all rely heavily on the cloud to automatically back up our important documents, but it pays to occasionally manually sync and fix any bugs that may be preventing complete server synchronisation and slowing us down. If you’re guilty of clicking ‘Remind me later’ or ignoring the Software Update notification on your phone, make a point of updating and re-booting once a month to ensure all your devices are all operating efficiently.
*Top-tip - Prepare and plan to complete an offline task while the update is in progress; in our experience updates can find you staring at the spinning progress circle losing the will to live!
Check out, check in
A lot can happen in a month. Pool your business cards, your new subscribers, networking contacts, visitors or new customers and update your databases. Research new acquaintances, follow them on social media, set up one 2 ones. Similarly, remove any unsubscribes and their associated data where it has been requested.
Check in with your clients or customers. What key events or challenges have they got coming up? How can you help or show your support? When was the last time you went for coffee? Review your diary, set up meetings and schedule time to prepare; it will really help you get the most out of meetings while you’re there, and save time wasted on follow up calls and emails if you forget to mention something.
*Top-tip – Create specific meeting days where you cluster appointments to minimise your time out of the office and maximise your day when you’re unlikely to get any meaningful project work done.
Reconcile and relax
Finance. So important, yet often such a chore. But even if you don’t enjoy the numbers, it’s vital to tackle this task regularly. Aside of payroll, once a month, reconcile the bank, make payments, chase invoices and process receipts. There, that wasn’t so bad!
Plan content, feel content
We like to work two or three months in advance, yet a monthly review of your regular marketing activities such as your blog, e-news and social media is so important. Just a few hours spent planning key messages and scheduling social media posts is far more efficient than a daily scramble for content.
*Top-tip – Use one of the many templates available online to help you plan content OR watch this space as we’ll be sharing ours very soon – coming to a blog near you!
In addition, a monthly ten-minute check of your social media analytics will show you which posts are capturing your audience’s imagination, and which aren’t. A peak at your website data will nip any problems in the bud or indicate changes that need to be made. And a monthly check of Google analytics will tell you what people were searching before they arrived at your site. Useful stuff for re-shaping the month ahead.
Be mindful, get motivated
Schedule a little time to look at the bigger picture. What has worked well? What have been your recent highlights? What hasn’t worked so well? What can you learn? What are your goals for the upcoming month?
Mindfully spending time on this exercise keeps you focused, positive, re-ignites passion, boosts motivation and the simple act of committing pen to paper forces your brain to decide what is really important, making actions, decisions and reflections, actual, intentional thoughts.
*Top-tip – If like us, you’re a sucker for stationery, invest in a journal for this purpose. Add in a cuppa and some time out of the office. If the whole process feels like a pleasure, you’ll be much more inclined to do it each month.
By dedicating just a few minutes to each of these tasks, each month, you’ll soon find it’s virtually impossible to be dis-organised. But please don’t worry, if you need some help getting your organisational house in order, this is where Queen Bee can help. We combine creativity with productivity to help business owners take back control and achieve more. Just give us a call…